Category Archives: Parenthood

I am hard on my kids. Too hard, a lot of times, which always makes me regret it once I stop and think about how I’m treating them. Instead of choosing my battles, I decide to take on every battle! That is what SUPERMOM is all about, right? Keeping a tight leash on your kids and setting the bar super high? After some ReFleCtioNthis week, maybe I should start looking for a new role model…

As Christians, we know how miserably we fail at numerous tasks and actions throughout our day, yet when we glance up at God we are reassured that He forgives and loves us no matter how much we are being a disappointment. It is so comforting to know that when I make mistakes, at least someone still has my back…because HE knows we are human and are far from pErfeCt.

Yet WHY do I hold my kids to a different standard? When they don’t do what I ask, or spill a cup FULL of pop on the floor, I repeatedly get on to them and ask why they didn’t listen or be more careful!! Not only that, but I bring it up AGAIN when their Dad comes home and maybe even AGAIN before they go to sleep, in hopes that I am getting my point across!

When I make the same exact mistakes (just in adult form!), does God TrEaT me like that? Never. I always feel Him looking at me in a calm way, his eyes telling me that I need to pick myself up and go on. I know I let Him down but I also know that once I acknowledge my weaknesses to Him, He moves on and doesn’t keep throwing it in my face. I really appreciate that about Him.

So why is it okay for me to fail God but not okay for others to fail me? As cHalleNgiNgas it will be, I am going to try to be as understanding and calm with my children as He is to me. Sure, I’ll still get on to them and discipline when needed, but then I need to let it go and hope they make a better decision next time. We know that kids won’t always do the right thing, but thankfully God doesn’t give up on us adults either! With every year I get under my belt, I can see I’m going to need all the help and forgiveness I can get!

For 35 years I’ve cried at the end of each and every summer. In my teenage years my parents would drive away from Chadwick Beach, New Jersey as I cried with sand still sticking to my toes. This year, my 36th summer was far from any scene Norman Rockwell would have wanted to capture! My kids seemed to take up sibling arguing as their summer hobby, my parent’s beach house at the Jersey Shore sat completely gutted and unusable thanks to last October’s hurricane, my son broke his arm, and as the lyrics of It’s a Small World say it best, our trip to Disney seemed to bring out “A world of tears” in my daughter! TaNTrUmS, ScReAmInG, and BrEaKdOwNs were everyday occurrences for my kids (and sometimes Mommy). On our Disney vacation, the low-point was my daughter Abby while decked out head to toe in her Belle costume screaming at the top of her 4-year-old lungs, “You’re a mean Mommy!” Why you might ask? All because I wouldn’t let her walk on a ledge that she wanted to use as a balance beam! MeAn MoMmY!!! Where was this kid when her MeAn MoMmY was packing 3 princess dresses complete with tiaras and light up shoes, a Tinker Bell costume with light up wings and shoes that jingle, and countless other Disney “necessities”?!!!

This is just so you can get an image of the Belle ensemble!

Then the high-point. If you’ve ever been to Disney World’s Hollywood Studios you know you can’t top the experience of ridding the Aerosmith Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. I LOVE roller coasters and this one is simply the best. You ride in the dark and go 0 to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds while Aerosmith’s LoVe In An EleVaToR and WaLK THiS WaY blast in your ears! Since my kids were way too little to go on this ride and we had no one to watch the kids while my husband and I went on the ride. I did the only thing that made sense. I WENT ON THE RIDE ALL BY MYSELF. I walked up the single riders line and was on the ride within 5 minutes. As like each time I’ve gone on the Rock ‘n’ Coaster before, my heart was pounding with anticipation as the limousine coaster pulled back and took off into darkness. Turning upside down and sideways with Aerosmith screaming in my ears was exactly what I needed to recharge and refuel. I walked off that ride like a little kid on Christmas morning. OK, so the ride only lasts 1 minute and 22 seconds, but it was 1 minute and 22 seconds ALL TO MYSELF! There was no fighting over who was going to sit next to Mommy, no crying when “World of tears Abby” was too short to go on the ride when Nicholas made the cut, it was just me and around these parts that is a ReAlLy rare thing! I think there may have been a little skip in my step when I met my husband and kids waiting for me and when the next little crisis broke out…this Mommy was ready to take it on!

I realize that I can’t jump on a roller coaster every time I need to get some perspective, but this entire experience made me realize that it is the smallest and silliest things that can turn your day or summer in my case around. If you feel like you are overwhelmed with something whether it be your kids, family, work, etc. take a break and do something that makes you happy. Get your nails done, go shopping, grab coffee with a girlfriend. It might be just what you need!

*Or you can click on this YouTube video I found that someone made of the Aerosmith Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. It pretty much details my entire ride except they had a different music selection…still great though!

Hi friends! I missed you all this summer, more than you’ll ever know. I underestimated how much writing YOU is such good therapy for ME! :)

At the beginning of the summer I decided to work on accomplishing one GoALwith the kids by the end of the summer: to stop their thumb sucking!! It has been a habit for both of our kiddos ever since birth.

We purchased some (pricey) thumb guards from tguard.com which was recommended by a friend. This worked well with Leanne, our oldest daughter who is 6. Garrett, our 3 year-old, didn’t respond as well to them. No matter what I did, he seemed to find a way to get the guards off. I even bought the next size down, thinking they were too big, but he still found a way. Truly, I think he got them off because he was willing to put himself through a considerable amount of pain…that’s a BOYfor ya! But my daughter didn’t really fight it, and even if she tried, she wasn’t able to get hers off. Regardless, I would still highly recommend tguards to anyone wanting to break this habit. I think they are one of the best options on the market.

The next thing we tried was our ChEApEst and most successful attempt so far. I took their winter mittens and cut out all the fingers except the thumbs! Both kids responded well to these because they were more comfortable to wear and much easier to put on. The issue with mittens: they are SUPER easy to take off, which meant we had to UP the incentives to keep them on. So…if they took the mittens off during the night, they didn’t get chocolate milk for breakfast and had to choke down regular milk (ha!). Also, they got points toward a favorite toy which they finally got to cash in at the end of the summer. The chocolate milk was a good incentive because it is the first thing they look forward to when they wake up, which we always reminded them when putting them to bed. Sometimes they would come into the kitchen with a frown on their face and mitten-free hands, knowing regular milk would be on the menu:(

It took about a month for Garrett to break the habit of taking his mittens off at night. And even though I feel they have broken their habit, they still request the mittens at night, just to make sure they don’t suck their thumbs without realizing it while sleeping. I am so proud of them!

As I re-read this post, the process still sounds so much easier than it really was. I don’t want to lie and make it sound like it was easy, because it wasn’t. It was a FigHt, especially with our 3-year-old. We exhausted all incentives and thumb guard options out there, and by the second half of the summer the mittens seemed to be what was most effective (even though it still took a good month before I felt like they really had it mastered). It was a roller coaster of a summer, but worth all the hard work! If your kiddos are dealing with the same struggle, I hope our experience and the mittens/tguards can be new options for you! Don’t lose hope! Hang in there momma!

I admit it…I spend WaY ToO MuCh time on my phone. It is a habit I have been saying I am going to stop for a long time, but have yet to accomplish. It would be bad enough if I was taking time away from my kids by just talking on the phone, but we all know that is not what I am doing. I hop around from email, to Facebook, to Pinterest, to Twitter and sometimes throw in a game of skee-ball. The problem is…NoNe of this is more important than my kids! If you are hooked on your phone and have been trying to stop, this letter written by Tonya Ferguson on her blog 4 Little Fergusons might just be what you need to finally put it down.

Dear mom on the iPhone,

I see you over there on the bench, messing on your iPhone. It feels good to relax a little while your kids have fun in the sunshine, doesn’t it? You are doing a great job with your kids: You work hard, you teach them manners, have them do their chores.

But Momma, let me tell you what you don’t see right now …

Your little girl is spinning round and round, making her dress twirl. She is such a little beauty queen already, the sun shining behind her long hair. She keeps glancing your way to see if you are watching her.

He sees that too. His shoulders slump, but only for a moment, as he finds the next cool thing to do.

Now you are pushing your baby in the swing. She loves it! Cooing and smiling with every push. You don’t see her though, do you? Your head is bent, your eyes on your phone as you absently push her swing.

Talk to her. Tell her about the clouds, Mommy. The Creator who made them. Tickle her tummy when she comes near you, and enjoy that baby belly laugh that leaves far too quickly.

Put your eyes back on your prize: your kids.

Show them that they are the priority. Wherever you are, be ALL there. I am not saying it’s not OK to check in on your phone, but it’s a time-sucker: User beware!

Play time at the park will be over before you know it.

The childhood of your children will be gone before you know it.

They won’t always want to come to the park with you, Mommy. They won’t always spin and twirl to make their new dress swish. They won’t always call out, “WATCH ME!”

There will come a point when they stop trying, stop calling your name, stop bothering to interrupt your phone time.

Because they know …

You’ve shown them, all these moments, that the phone is more important than they are. They see you looking at it at while waiting to pick up brother from school, during playtime, at the dinner table, at bedtime.

The hour before dinner in our house is always difficult because the kids can’t help but get restless waiting to eat and waiting for my husband to get home from work. In an attempt to avoid taking out every single backyard toy, I came up with this simple game that kept them busy and didn’t leave the yard a mess for me to clean up!

If you have a walkway similar to mine you can use each stone individually. If you have concrete you can divide it up into squares and play. I used sidewalk chalk to write down the sight words that my son is working on. I also drew some pictures for my daughter to color in to keep her busy. I had my son pick out a rock and instructed him to toss his rock onto the walkway filled with words. Once it landed on a word he had to run to it, say the word, then bring the rock back to me. It was such a simple game, but it kept him busy and helped him practice his words!

You can modify this to any level:

*Write letters on the stones to practice upper and lowercase letter recognition.

*Write numbers on the stones and use 2 rocks. Have your child add together the two numbers that the rocks land on.

*Draw pictures with your kids and have them tell you the first letter for each picture and the sound that it makes.

The possibilities are endless and the only thing you have to do is collect your sidewalk chalk when you are finished!

I’ve had friends tell me “You’ll just know when you are finished wanting to have more babies.” It seemed some vague to me…you’ll just know. How will I know? Will the two kids I already have drive me to the point of insanity one day and the image of a newborn swaddled in a receiving blanket will no longer seem appealing to me? Or will I wake up one day and realize the indecisiveness over wanting a third child just isn’t there any more and I can finally get rid of all of the baby stuff that is piled to the ceiling in my basement? I’ve wondered this since the birth of my daughter for over 3 years and can finally say I understand the “You’ll just know” feeling.

My Baby Boy Nicholas

This past month has been swamped with baby news. Friends have been giving birth left and right and pregnancy announcements have been popping up all over the place. All of this baby news of course made me think, “Maybe we should try for a 3rd.” I went back and forth with it in my head for days even though my husband had put the idea of a 3rd to rest long ago but I just couldn’t come to peace with it. Then it hit me, as I was daydreaming about the possibilities of expanding our family, the black cloud of postpartum depression loomed over me. I suffered from severe postpartum depression after the birth of both of my babies. (Click here to read my postpartum story, Baby Blues to Baby Bliss). It was to date the most difficult thing I have had to face. I started to feel the tightening in my chest and the ache in my heart. I thought of the two beautiful and healthy children that I was lucky enough to give birth to and how I would never want them to see me go through that nightmare again. At that moment IJuSt KnEw that I was done having babies and that my family was complete.

My Baby Girl Abby

I am sure the “You just know” moment is different for every woman. Whether it is the decision to not have children at all, or to not add any more children to the family you already have. I suddenly feel a sense of peace knowing that my decision is made and will live each day loving my family of 4.

I am sure eNjoYinGthe nice weather we are having in Kansas. We are looking forward to spring break!

Today I wanted to pass along something that has been helpful to our family. The other morning I was fixing Leanne’s hair. She didn’t like it and combed the braid out. It upset me because I had worked hard on it and we were running out of time before the bus came. I told her she would have to figure out how to fix her hair on her own and walked into the other room, upset (probably not the best of parenting!). To my surprise she walked after me and asked,

“Mom, can we sTarT oVeR?”

I replied, “Sure!” She stuck out her hand and we shook on it.

She smiled.

In a cheery voice I asked her how I could help her get ready for school, and off we went. It was as if the short moment of frustration never happened.

SOURCE

Don’t get me wrong, when my kids or husband ask me to “start over” it takes a big swallow of pride to put my anger aside and agree to start fresh. The human side of us just wants to stew over the problem, which only makes things worse and wastes a lot of time.

But just like ripping it like a band-aid, it only stings for a second! Do yourself (and your loved ones) a favor by asking if you can START OVER the next time things head in the wrong direction.

Lara

Now that nicer weather is around the corner, do you need help getting motivated to do some spring cleaning? If so, read my “Rip It Like A Band-Aid” post!